Athletics Injuries and Illness Surveillance Study

Moscow – Russia, August 8, 2013: The 14th edition of the IAAF World Championships, Moscow 2013 will be the fourth occasion that the IAAF has employed an Injuries and Illnesses Surveillance Study at the biennial World Championships, which is the pinnacle of the IAAF World Athletics Series.

The forthcoming study, which is in line with the IOC Medical Commission’s efforts, was first put into place during the 11th edition of the IAAF World Championships in Osaka 2007 and repeated in Berlin 2009 and Daegu 2011. Similar surveillances have also been done at many other IAAF competitions including various editions of the World Indoor, World Junior and World Youth Championships.

An important innovation with the Moscow 2013 study is that athletes are invited to fill out a questionnaire regarding injuries and illnesses sustained during the period of four weeks prior to the championships.

This is an important step ahead, allowing the IAAF to gather information concerning the problems athletes might suffer preparing for a major championship. This knowledge will help the IAAF to develop and implement future prevention strategies and decrease the number of illnesses and injuries incurring at championships.

The IAAF is part of the IOC Injury Study Group that has set the basis for injury and illness surveillance in Olympic Sports. The IAAF Medical and Anti-Doping Commission is committed to make our sport safer for our athletes and is increasingly emphasizing the protection of the athletes’ health and the prevention of injuries and illnesses.

The participation of the team physicians and physiotherapists in Moscow is extremely important for the success of this project, as they will help us report all injuries and illnesses of their athletes on a daily basis on a report form which is returned to the IAAF research team. The Local Organising Committee’s doctors are also requested to report all injuries and illness that they might attend.

All information regarding gender, age, nationality, diagnosis, symptoms, anatomic locations etc…, will be treated with the strictest confidentiality and safeguarded by the IAAF Medical and Anti-Doping Commission. Subsequent to the data collection and analysis, we will share the gained knowledge with the sports medicine community all over the world.

The goal of the study is to transfer the science into practice providing the national medical teams with valuable information that will help them prevent sports injuries and illnesses among their athletes.